Animal Rights / Vivisection Debate on "Third Thursday" pt. 3

[kimberlily1983]

Excellent question from an audience member at around 6:30. The answers given by Steve Carroll (1) ignore that terminally ill patients used in research are not tortured - there are limits to what can be done to them - and they give CONSENT, and (2) the excuse of "preserving your own" can be used to justify experimenting on, torturing strangers, other races, the mentally ill, you name it.

[kimberlily1983]

Right on, Sally Mackler, for exposing the lie that the term "humane" is, in its use by animal experimenters. There's no such thing as humane torture and exploitation.

She's completely right in her other point, which is that, even IF animal experimentation was as useful as is claimed and was morally right, we have limited resources: we can't do everything to cure disease, prevent it, etc. and so we must choose where to spend our money wisely. The allocation of funds to animal .... (continued)

[kimberlily1983]

@kimberlily1983 .... research is, from this angle, immoral as well. Think about it. We subsidize animal agriculture (indirectly through corn and soy subsidies), making diets that make people sick convenient and cheap, and then spend most of our health care (more aptly called sick care) and medical funds on treating disease that is for the most part preventable.

A moral model would be subsidizing healthy food, eliminating the use of pesticides, etc. and having a true HEALTH care system.

[kimberlily1983]

@kimberlily1983 The current system supports people making themselves fat and sick, prone to heart disease and cancer, and then when we succumb to these diseases, we are told that animal research and the drugs developed through it are "saving our lives" and is "necessary". What we need is a system that focuses on preventing the arising of these diseases in the first place, and that is done primarily through a healthy organic, vegan diet, physical activity, etc. Making these things more... (cont)

[kimberlily1983]

@kimberlily1983 .... accessible, more convenient, would completely revolutionize our lives, and would do far, far more to eradicate disease that these little pills and the torture that goes into manufacturing them.